


On the Other Side of the Box

by GettingMetaphysical



Series: All by Myself: A Doctorcest Storyline [14]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Doctorcest, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mind Manipulation, Romance, Self-Acceptance, Self-Hatred, Self-cest, doctorbation - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 12:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3209591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GettingMetaphysical/pseuds/GettingMetaphysical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Eleventh Doctor has to summon his past to hand out a mission. The Eighth Doctor spends his last time in touch with his future. Caught in the middle is the Ninth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Other Side of the Box

**Author's Note:**

> In the continuity of my stories, this one takes place between onemorelotus's "Thyselves" and "Make Much of Time" (for Eight). It also occurs many years after my own "The Pair of Aces" (for Eleven) and "The Despair in Repair" (for Nine). For Eight, this is before the Time War breaks out.

  
The hinges of the wooden door whined, and the Ninth Doctor wondered when he’d last oiled them. There was no telling how many years have passed in this future TARDIS. A beep from his own coral-themed screens and some coordinates for internal phasing, and the Doctor had found himself in the dark, following some electric lanterns. The other’s control room was gloomy, full of steel, purple and spinning things, but the corridors as plain as ever.

The Doctor entered an office, styled dingy, with earthly smells, gas lamps and books covering the walls. At the end of the room, behind a desk, sat his Eleventh self, polishing his glasses.

”Doctor,” he said, his features welcoming and weary.

”Doc,” said Nine, grinning. ”What’s with the Halloween trail?”

”The lanterns? Why, the Old Girl was feeling dramatic, and y’know,” Eleven poised the specs on his nose and leaned his mighty chin on steepled fingers, ”so was I.”

”Cute.” Nine slouched in the doorway, barely three meters from himself. ”But if I know you, and you bet your cute little tush I do, this is more serious than you’re letting on.”

”Weeell,” said the older Time Lord. He made this spinning gesture with both hands, and then – as if by accident – pushed forward some white and silver gadgets almost to the edge of the desk. ”Remember these?”

”Mhm.” He cringed.

His older self pick up a finger-sized device. ”The event-bomb, for locking up and releasing a memory at a set time. A black-out, more like a fog than actually forgetting,” he explained, then picked the one resembling a gun. ”The relation-eraser, for taking away people and everything associated with them. Effective, but leaves one irritated and empty. Unless you’re _very_ good at programming what goes and what stays.” The older Time Lord grimaced at himself, and showed off the final one. It was like a musical box, with a little handle. ”The time-unwinder, for pushing the memories off and ignoring what doesn’t make sense. You might feel what happened but you can never concentrate on it. Very good for relations, I should’ve thought.”

The oldest Doctor laid the bomb and gun aside, leaving a box.

”There are more types, of course, but I’m most familiar with these three.”

His younger self made a grim face.

”Nine, there’s something I have to ask of you. You see, suppose that I’m the, so to say, ’New’ Eight… That means Ten is my Six. And, suppose, for this scenario, our actual Eight will be Three.”

”Oh, no,” groaned the younger Doctor. ”I should’ve guessed…”

”Nine, I need you to ’do a Four’.”

~*~ [ > ] ~*~

”Eight… did I ever tell you you’re beautiful?”

The younger Doctor chuckled.

”Several times. But it’s nice that future me still says so.”

”You’re welcome.” The Ninth’s hand drew equations on his past stomach. He sighed. ”I really fucked myself up. I would say it’s all your doing, but it isn’t. I went along with it. I should’ve resisted as Four, but I couldn’t. Should’ve stopped as Seven, but I didn’t.”

”Now I’m in Nine’s arms”, the Eighth concluded. ”The hard-to-reach Me.”

Said arms circled his delicate build from behind.

”I feel sorry for us. We fucked ourselves over. I’m forever my own lover.”

Eight turned his head towards him. ”What, do you think it was wrong of me? To give the memories back to Five?”

”No. No, of course not.” Nine said to his locks, as firmly as he could. ”It’s part of me, there’s no messing about and unmaking our life. It loops and loops and loops forever, and you’re so good for taking it all on. This ridiculous mess has led to some of the most care-free pastimes of my life.” 

”You talk as if it’s not so good anymore.”

”I’m just being melodramatic again, dearhearts. What I mean is… you need to revel in it, Doctor. Bloody roll around in it, soak up the happy so that I can deal with the sad.”

”I _am_ dealing with plenty of the sad,” the young Doctor insisted, pushing away from the embrace to turn his whole body. ”Dealt with, gonna deal with, dealing, ugh, you know what I mean.”

”Exactly.” Nine laid solid hands on the back of his head and small of his back. ”Every time that comes around, we have to be prepared. Roll in the happy, put it on replay in our hearts.

”Replay?” The small man snuggled his chest. ”That goes for everything and everyone, doesn’t it?”

”All of it. The good, the bad and the ugly. And the beautiful. That’s why we’ve got memory at all, to rewind, unwind… to realize…”

There was a soft sigh, which both of the Doctors thought that the other one had made. Through the walls, ever so lightly, the TARDIS engines whirred on.

”Still got that one tape, by the way,” the elder murmured.

”That One Tape me and Five sent to One?”

”Yeah, and on the actual tape, not a digital file like all those flicks Four kept behind a dozen passwords and puzzles. I kept all those, too.”

”I like them”, the Eighth mumbled. ”They’re all too much fun.”

~*~

”Why do _I_ have to do it?”

”For the same reason Six had to restore Five. You’ve already rehearsed it once, but it was recent enough for you to have the performance fresh in your mind.”

”Cut the euphemisms, Eleven. You’re just _scared_.”

”As if you aren’t.”

”Yeah, alright. And yet you’ve got the right to send me out like some telepathic suicide bomber. What if I don’t want to?” The Ninth marched right up to the elder’s desk, the whining of a skidding chair and steps loud in his ears. There was just no time –

”Why does he have to suffer so badly?”

Or too much time –

”What about our _hopes_?!” he yelled, bashing his fists onto the wood, startling Eleven in his seat. ”What about recovery, huh? Why does he have to think that _we don’t want him_?”

”I, I knew being you,” the older pushed his glasses up, ”being with him hurt. That’s why you were so hard to reach back then, Nine. He’ll understand –”

”Of course he –”

Oh no. Please, no. The words hung between them, like a lead block on a string.

_Of course he’ll understand. We did._

Damn it, Eleven. That quirky, adorable lad with the bow tie, such a part of him simply must have a good piece of Seven in him. Two, as well, like a remix; stir down old with old, pour into a mold, and _voilà_ ; there’s something new, yet similar.

There’s just no way to win, if you could even call it that. No counterargument, no emotional urge, no amount of kicking and begging and _please don’t go yet_ s that could change a future’s mind, unless that was what was supposed to happen anyway. Or unless they didn’t remember.

Nine knew that look in his eyes. The soft, hopeless look that meant he couldn’t rewrite it… and that he shouldn’t want to.

He’d seen it in his own.

”Do you want to die, my Ninth? Do you want to change?”

”I did,” the Doctor said. No use hiding from the future. ”But no, not… not now. There’s been too much good. Enough that I can sometimes forget the bad.”

He sighed, dragged a palm over his cheek. Was he being selfish?

”Yeah, no, I don’t want to change. It wouldn’t be fair to Rose, to any of them. And I really don’t want to remake you, or Ten.”

”Thank you,” his older self said, with a smile that was so warm, in the same way a blanket in front of a fire stove and a mug of hot chocolate is warm.

The younger Time Lord flopped down in the visitor’s chair he’d scooted to the side in his outburst.

”I love you two. And we love them. You know, right?”

”Mm, I love you too. All of myselves,” his successor reached an open hand over the desk, ”and just me alone. It keeps me warm when I’m up fixing the Old Girl.”

Nine rested the tips of his right hand’s fingers on top of Eleven’s. ”I could say that again.”

For a while, they were silent. Eventually, their hands parted. They looked away from each other, in the same way a dying fire crackles quieter, as the glow of coal takes its place and the chocolate is a gross aftertaste coating your tongue.

”Eight must forget us,” the older Time Lord said. ”He mustn’t see what we’ve become. He’s too close to finding us out. He’d never forgive us.”

”Not right now, he wouldn’t.”

”Exactly. He doesn’t know what The War is like, he’s not even there yet. Disrupting his time stream from now on would be… disaster.”

What difference does it make, Nine wanted to say.

~*~ [ > ] ~*~

”Will it hurt?”

The amnesia-prone Doctor lay with his hands clasped over his stomach, inside one of the TARDIS gardens. The light was soft, the air was cool, and both twirled through twigs and grass and stone pillars. Mixed particles glittered in the oxygen and radiance. All was deep green and pale grey, save for the two Time Lords adding splashes of color. Although not as many as they used to.

Eight shifted over the unkempt lawn. He’d let Nine pick the waking spot, for who knew what would relax the initial panic better than himself?

”You’ll be strained. Muscles stale, head hurting, fatigued from energy burnt.”

”Ah.”

Nine nodded. His calloused fingers kept missing the numbers on the settings screen. He flinched and shuffled past the double-one in the coordinates again. It really wasn’t this difficult, but his nerves got jumpy just from feeling Eight’s gentle gaze, gentler mental touch slipping down his spiky, crackled defenses.

_(Oh, Nine, Ninth Doctor, Old Me, Friend, Lover, my Sweeth–) Am I bothering you? (Sorry, oughta, ??)_

_No (Eight, my little Butterfly) Just kind of (scaredangrywaitingnervous) Frustrated, is all_

_I understand (Relax you’ve Done this before)_

”It’s ready.”

Nine held up the internal cartridge, and slid it into place, _clack_ inside the box. Strange, how some venting had led his hand right across the buttons. The coordinates Eleven had shown him were now perfectly prepared to unwind perceptions… Unwind existence.

_(’…Perhaps I’ve gotten out of hand…’)_

”Don’t even think it,” Eight snapped. His voices were blending, seeping into their scalps, whipping the air. ”I love you, I want _you and All of the Angry Things You (We) Are._ Whatever you are and however I will be, _I Trust You._

 _You’re not making this easier_ , the Doctor managed to tell himself while his kiss turned every word into whirling feathers and enveloping amber, and Eight relaxed underneath him. Why had he focused so on comforting Nine? Understanding the future’s intentions was barely a security sling when you were hanging off the edge of panic.

The edge of war.

”Doctor. I have a whim for you. You won’t know I gave it to you, but you’ll ponder and agonize over it, and then you’ll follow through with it.”

”Ooh. A complicated whim,” his predecessor said. ”Important, I gather.”

”Very. The whim is; Go to Seven.”

”Seven?” Eight said. ”But he –”

”No questions. ’Go to Seven’, that’s it. You’ll come through with a decision.” _I Trust You._

~*~ 

”I was punishing myself, y’know.”

His Eleventh self looked up. The faux gas lamp lit half of his face, and probably cast weird shadows over the younger Doctor’s features too.

”Things’ve been coming back to me, lately,” the Ninth continued, monotone. He fixed his gaze on the bookcase behind Eleven, and imagined it was full of photo albums and tapes rather than books on geography.

”Me, back before Ten found me. I walked couple yards away from Four and Five once. They were watching some cricket match… Four bored out of his mind and Five excited like a puppy. Saw Six and Eight sneaking into one of their TARDISes. Two and Seven… It’s kind of blurry, but I think I – they were entertaining a crowd. Jamming.”

The elder pushed the specs up farther on his nose.

”Point is, I never met them. Least I don’t think I did. But I saw… I knew they were there. That they could be wherever, whenever, and I couldn’t take it, how inescapable it all was. I might look like several people, but it was all just me, alone. So bloody creepy that I just kept wiping it.”

”Not allowed to comfort yourself,” the older him said.

There was a pause, as both of them recalled a punch to their benign Tenth face, tears and accusations from a younger Ninth voice.

”Not allowed,” Nine echoed.

”I can’t blame you.”

”Yeah, ’cause we got over it. I’m selfish again.”

”I’m not selfish just because I need myself sometimes.” Eleven’s voice was as soft as his eyes were sharp.

And their eyes met, as embers against ice.

Finally, the younger Doctor reached over the desk to put the little white and silver box in his inner pocket. Bigger on the inside, the leather over his right heart didn’t bulge at all.

”Yeah, I’m not. Then again…” 

He rose from the seat.

”…Most beings have a need for escapism.”

~*~ [ > ] ~*~ 

Nothing but the sound of heavy boots crossing the lawn, and the rattling of an old leather jacket with many things in its pockets. The hinges on the entrance whining as someone leaves.

A Time Lord passed out in the middle of his TARDIS’s garden. His brown locks curl around the green grass, his knuckles whitened from ripping it out, and which his fingers are still desperately grasping. His face no longer scrunched up in pain.

The little box, a foot away from his head. He will see when he wakes.

Of course, what has been undone in his mind will return to him when the time comes. But for now, what is left is uncertain shadows.

The last he felt before falling unconscious, was a broad thumb drying his tears.

~*~*~*~

* * *

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
This story archived at <http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=56475>


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